Papa Fury
by WhatTheValhalla
Summary: AU. Nick Fury is the adopted father of little Maria, Clint, Phil and Natasha. Inspired by 3am tumbling, so ignore if you hate cute/fluff/crack/au's that don't make any sense No longer a one-shot, but still kinda short.
1. Chapter 1

"Are you sure you have everything?" Nick Fury asked for what seemed like the millionth time, but was probable the tenth.

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll take care of 'Tasha," Clint Barton, Nick's adopted son insisted, while giving his younger sister a hug.

"Yea, Daddy. Me an' Clint'll beat up any bad guys who try and be mean to 'Tasha, like Captain America!" Phil Coulson, Nick's other adopted son, added with enthusiasm.

"Why can't I go to school, Daddy?" Maria Hill, one of Nick's adopted daughters asked.

"You're too little, baby. Next year you can go, but 'till then you have to stay at home with me. I need someone to look after me while everyone else is at school," Nick replied with a smile, tickling Maria's tummy and making her giggle.

Throughout the whole conversation Natasha Romanoff stayed quiet. She had been adopted from Russia not too long ago, and although she spoke English perfectly, when she was nervous she tended to slip back to her mother tongue. Because of this, she got very quiet when she was nervous or worried.

"You alright, Tasha?" Nick asked softly, kneeling downs so he was at eye level with the five-year-old girl.

"Da, uh, yea. I am okay," she replied awkwardly.

"Don't worry, Tasha. You're gonna love school. And Clint and Phil's friend, Thor, his brother's going to be in your class. That's one person you know before you even join," Nick said reassuringly. He didn't want Natasha to isolate herself from everyone, so he was glad that she would already know someone.

"Alright now, everyone into the car."

* * *

"Bye, Papa," Natasha said shyly. She had been living with Nick and the others for almost a year, but even though it had only taken her a few weeks to stark calling Nick "Papa" she still felt a bit awkward saying it instead of "dad" or "daddy" like the others.

"Bye Tasha. Have a nice day, baby, and be good for me," Nick said, waving goodbye to the back of Natasha's head.

"So, Maria," Nick said, turning to his youngest daughter "Tell me, do you like hot chocolate?" Maria nodded her head enthusiastically while Nick strapped her back into her car seat.

"Oh, good, because I was thinking we should do something special for you."

* * *

"Okay class, my name is Ms Munroe and I'm going to be your teacher this year."

Ms Munroe was a young woman, maybe twenty-twenty five. She had short, white blonde hair and had a kind smile and eyes that twinkled. It was obvious that she loved teaching from the way she looked so affectionately at the children whom she had only just met.

Natasha thought that she looked very pretty and very kind.

"I want to get to know all of you, and I want for you to feel like you know me, so we're going to go round in a circle and everybody will say their name and something special about themselves," she continued, beckoning all the children to sit around her in a circle.

"Okay, I'll go first. My name, like I said, in Ms Munroe, and I can balance spoon on my nose, who wants to go next?"

A young boy with gelled black hair, who Natasha recognised as Clint's friend's brother raised his hand shyly.

"Um, my name's Loki, and, um, I'm good at magic tricks."

"Cool! Who's next?"

A small boy with neatly combed blonde hair raised his hand slightly and, after a bit of prompting from Ms Munro, began to speak.

"I'm Steve and when I'm big I wanna join the army like my mom and dad."

"Well I'm sure the army will be lucky to have you. Next."

The class had only nine students, so they got through everyone nice and quick, although Natasha had a feeling she would mix up some of the girls, who all seemed to have very similar names. She knew it would be almost impossible to try and remember that Jane liked science, but Jan liked drawing, and Jessica liked gymnastics. Finally it was Natasha's turn.

"My name is Natasha, and I love ballet," she said shyly, staring at her hands as she sat cross legged in the circle.

"Great, maybe you can do a dance for the end of year show?" Ms Munroe said in a way that was both hopeful, but also said "The choice is up to you".

"Maybe," Natasha replied, although she had no intention of dancing in and school show.

"Well now that we know each other, I'm afraid it's time to do some work," Ms Munroe said, and had it not been their first day she was sure they would have groaned, but as it was they all walked back to their seats.

"Now, does everybody have a blank copybook?"

* * *

In the classroom across the hall Clint Phil were doing a similar activity with their class full of six-year-olds, but the difference was that everyone knew each-other already. Phil was showing his friend Thor his new Captain America pencil case, which he was very proud of and Clint was talking to his friend Logan about a comic book they had both read over the summer.

"Alright class, settle down," the teacher said sharply. The whole class fell silent at the authority in her voice; she was new to the school and therefore no one could be sure how much they could mess around in class, yet.

"My name is Ms Danvers and I will be your teacher this year. I must warn you all, don't misbehave in my class, or you will regret it, but if everyone behaves all week I'm sure a small party every Friday could be arranged." She spoke with the air of someone who had trained in the military, and that should be a requirement to becoming a teacher because the class stayed quiet while she explained some of the class rules, and the consequences of breaking them.

* * *

Nick waited just beside the school gates at five-to-three, with a tired Maria clinging to his back. She hadn't had a nap as Nick had taken her with him when he went grocery shopping and her half closed eyes, and the fact that one of her pigtails had fallen out, earned him a few sympathetic looks from fellow 'moms' collecting their children.

"Careful, baby," he said softly, catching her as she slipped of his back and cradling her to his torso, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

Before long the irritating sound of the electric school bell filled the yard and children began rushing out to their parents. Nick looked out for Natasha but he didn't see her and he began to worry. Phil ran over to him and began chattering away about what a friend of his had said about something, and Nick could see Clint with a group of boys who were probably in in his class, but still no Natasha.

He wasn't panicking exactly, but eyes scanned the yard, searching for the tell-tale shimmer of orangey-red of her hair and at last he saw her.

She was surrounded by two or three girls and they all appeared to be talking happily.

"Bye bye," Natasha said cheerfully to her new friends before greeting Nick, her brothers and her sister, equally cheerfully.

"Someone had a good day," Nick commented.

"Yea, it was really fun, and I made loads of new friends."

"That's great. You can tell me all about it on the way home."

* * *

Just a bit of AU fluffyness for you guys, inspired by some 3am tumbling (blogging, not gymnatsics)

It will probably stay a one shot, but if I get enough responses I might write more.

It was inspired by a pic I saw on tumblr but I can't find it, but it was very adorable.


	2. Chapter 2

"Papa?" Natasha asked quietly, seemingly engrossed in her 'homework'; drawing a picture of her family.

"Yea, Tasha, 's everything alright, baby?" Nick replied before pausing his less than perfect attempt at making a healthy homemade dinner for his children.

"Why did you adopt me?" She asked quietly, worried that he would yell at her like the men had yelled at her after her parents died.

"Because you needed me, and how could I turn down a little cutie like you?" he asked rhetorically, but joking about it didn't stop the rush of memory's that were just as clear as six months ago when they happened.

He had been at home when he got the call, in the middle of trying to persuade Clint to climb down from the big apple tree in the back garden.

_It had always been a game of sorts between them, and it always ended with Nick climbing the tree, dragging and tickling a laughing Clint all the way to the bottom. It was almost a tradition, so when Nick stopped to take a phone call, and then just ignored Clint when the call ended, he knew something was serious._

_Nick had bundled Clint, Phil and Maria into his car and driven them to the house of a boy in Clint and Phil's class, Tony, who neither boy liked very much. Nick left them with Tony and a man in a suit named Jarvis with a promise that he would be back soon._

_He remembered returning to SHIELD, fully prepared to shoot the person responsible for forcing him to leave his children alone, but it didn't take him long to realise what was going on._

_There had been an attack on a SHIELD base in Moscow, but instead of spys, or assassins, or even soldiers, they were attacked by young girls and, despite SHIELD's heartless reputation none of the agents could bring themselves to shoot a child._

_So all the girls were brought back to bases, split up so they couldn't join forces and escape, with hopes that they could be rehabilitated to join the 'good' side, with good being a relative term. But there was one girl who was so much younger than the rest, who had barely attacked, surrendered first and, despite being for too small and slim for the handcuffs they had forced on her, hadn't even attempted escaping._

_Someone (who obviously didn't have any kids) assumed that Nick would take her, just because he already had three. At first Nick was going to protest, but he caught sight of little Natasha sitting with her legs dangling on a chair that was far too big for her tiny frame and realised he just couldn't let this little girl be corrupted by SHIELD. He decided then and there that he was going to take care of Natasha and give her the best childhood that he could._

_That was also the day he officially resigned from his position as director of SHIELD. He didn't want to have to leave his kids again, so he let Sitwell take over._

"Papa, what do you think?" Natasha asked hopefully, holding up the picture she had drawn so Nick could get a good look at it, yanking him out of his daydream.

"It's beautiful, Tasha," he said kindly, carefully taking in every crayon-drawn detail of the picture, and kissing the top of Natasha's head when he was finished. He knew that, ad she grown up at SHIELD she would have become cold, heartless, a perfect killer, nothing lie the sweet girl who always said please and thank you and drew cute crayon pictures which would end up stuck to the fridge, probably by a tacky plastic magnet.

* * *

"Hey dad," Clint said cheerily as he sat down at the kitchen table, "What's for dinner?"

"Spaghetti," Nick replied, stirring a pot of mincemeat and canned tomatoes. He was getting better at making dinners, even if it had taken him three years to be able to make the sauce without burning it.

"Cool, so, um, I was wondering," Clint started slowly, not sure whether or not he should got through with saying what he wanted to say.

"It's my birthday next week and, um," he tried, but Nick cut him short with a chuckle.

"Is this about your present? Because when I said whatever you like, within reason, I didn't mean much reason. We're not exactly poor so I can get you what you want," he said kindly. It was Clint's first birthday since he was adopted, and from what Nick knew of his past he assumed Clint might feel guilty about asking for a big present.

"No it's not that, it's just," Clint said before taking in a big breath and them saying all in a rush, "There'sacircuscomingtotownandIwaswondering," he gasped for breath before continuing, "ifIcouldgoandseeifmaybeBarneywasinit?" He looked up at Nick with big hopeful eyes. Nick looked back at him carefully, not wanting to crush his spirits completely, but at the same time it was a difficult situation.

"Clint, you and I both know that even if we go to the circus," he stopped what he was doing and turned to face Clint, who was sitting at the kitchen table.

"Even if we do go to the circus, there's still only a very slim chance that your brother will be there, and even if he is, what then? There's nothing I can do short of having him arrested that can force him to leave if he doesn't want to." Nick put his hand on Clint's shoulder comfortingly.

"I know this is hard, and I know you love your brother, I'm not saying you can't go to the circus for your birthday, but I don't want to see you upset if he's there and then he leaves."

"But what if I go with him? You said I could join him when I'm older, and I'm older," Clint said hopefully.

"You really want to leave us that badly," Nick asked, crushed that he hadn't done enough to make Clint want to stay with them.

"No, it's not that. I really love you guys, an' I don't wanna leave, but, I just miss Barney," Clint replied slowly, not looking Nick in the eye.

"Well I suppose we could go to the circus,"" Nick started slowly, smiling when he saw how much Clint perked up, "If, if you promise you won't run away with the circus, we'd all miss you too much." He picked up Clint into a big bear hug, and Clint giggled a bit as he ticked him.

"Okay," he gasped while Nick swung him upside-down and tickled his stomach, "I won't leave, I promise."

* * *

So you people wanted more of this story, hope it didn't disappoint. I wanted to give a bit of back story before I try to write any plot, Maria and Phil's back stories will be next, but I don't know how quickly they will be up.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

It was two days since Clint had asked about going to the circus and, for the most part, he had moved on. Unfortunately Phil was unaware of the significance of visiting, or not visiting, the circus.

"Can we please go to the circus? Please, please, pleeeeeeeeese," Phil whined. While he hadn't lived with Nick the longest, he had known him the longest and was the most comfortable of all the children with asking for something from Nick.

It reminded Nick of Phil's mother who had been a young agent when Nick was still known as 'Director Fury'. She was one of very few agents who had children, although she didn't have a husband, and often brought little Phil to work with her. So Fury, who often had Maria with him, would become a part-time babysitter whenever Agent Coulson was on a mission, and one day she didn't make it home.

It had been near impossible for Nick to explain to the crying four-year-old that 'mommy wasn't going to come back'.

Originally Phil was going to be sent to live with a grandfather, who lived in Washington DC, but Nick couldn't bring himself to ship the little boy off to live with a relative who didn't know or want him, so Phil had been given a choice and, well, who could say no to living with a 'Real Life Pirate!' (Phil's words, not mine)

Nick had almost forgotten what had brought the memories to his mind when Phil repeated the question, in the same tone his mother had used when she wanted to go on a mission, or she wanted Nick to mind Phil.

"Can we? Please? I can pay for my own ticket, I don't mind. I'll be really good, I promise," he continued, bouncing on his toes in excitement.

"We'll see," Nick replied, in a tone that, to Phil anyway, meant 'Yes'.

"Thanks Dad, I love you," Phil squealed, hugging Nick and then running out into the garden to play with Clint and Natasha.

* * *

On the Friday of Natasha's first week of school, which also happened to be Clint's birthday, so he was having a party, and was allowed to bring one friend home from school with him; the rest would arrive at five o'clock.

The friend was a boy named Logan Howlett who lived a few houses down the road, and whose brother, Victor, held the record for the most windows broken by accident on the street.

Logan was a good boy (usually) but, like most six year olds he lacked any tact whatsoever, as demonstrated when he ran into the house with Clint after Nick called them in to eat something 'healthy' before the other children arrive and the sweet come out.

"Are you a pirate?" he asked in what Nick assumed should have been an innocent tone.

"No," he replied calmly, setting two plates of burgers and chips in front of the boys.

"I'm not a pirate, I'm an accountant." While that wasn't strictly true, doing paperwork from home for an organisation that, strictly speaking, doesn't even exist, isn't the easiest thing to explain to a kid.

"Then why d'ya got an eye patch?" Nick took a deep breath. That was something that he wished he could forget, but that he knew he never could. He replied to Logan with a casual, "Because I do," and heard Clint whisper to his friend that "Dad doesn't like to talk about that, but it was too late. The memory was the only thing on his mind and he excused himself from the kitchen to go and sit up in his bedroom.

It would be four years in a few months, on Maria's fifth birthday.

Nick hated himself so much for what happened that day, despite being told time and time again by his 'co-workers' that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't have done anything different, but the memory still haunted him.

He had been out with his wife, Kara, her sister, her sister's husband and her sister's one-year-old daughter. They had been out shopping for said daughter's birthday, and had plans for visiting a movie later in the evening, but an assassin had other plans.

With Nick just recently promoted to Director, he instantly became a target for other organisations, especially HYDRA, and Nick was lucky to be alive.

The sniper was both a terrible shot and unconcerned with subtlety, and although he was killed before he could be imprisoned, most likely a brainwashing victim. He killed Kara, the sister and husband, but the little girl survived, so Nick adopted her, Maria, took care of her, spent less time with SHIELD and more time reading books on childcare. He could never give up his children, but at the same time he still occasionally had nightmares about that night.

Nick didn't realise he was on the ground 'till he felt it shake with the force of someone knocking on the door, so he picked himself up and put on a happy face so that Clint would have a fun party and no one would ever be able to tell that he was still broken underneath.

"Hey!" he greeted brightly as Thor and Loki's father stood in the doorway with his two boys, "Come on in, you boys can head out to the bouncy castle in the yard if you like." Nick turned to Odin, "The party ends at half seven."

"Alright, see you then, boys," he called, but the two of them had already ran to the garden. Thor was pulling off his shoes while Loki handed Clint a brightly packaged cube, but Nick shut the front door and gently grabbed the box from Clint's grasp.

"You know the rule; no presents 'till the day after," he said firmly, but Clint was too excited to be having a 'real party, with a bouncy caste an' everything' to care.

Nick was just about to sit down when the doorbell rang again, and he could tell it would be a long night.

* * *

Well, there you have it, another chapter, sorry for how depressing that second part was, I'm not sure where that came from, but hope you liked it anyway.

Um, big thanks to RandmWriter for being so enthusiastic, yea you get a shout out. Also thanks to everyone who commented, but I only really reply if you ask a question (or say something funny, and sometimes I'll reply with a generic 'Thanks for following if I have time) but I don't always have time to do that.

I still really appreciate your support and I love to hear your opinion of my writing, so keep the comments coming.

Next chapter I'm going to attempt a half-arse plot, but it's just going to get darker from here, with bits of fluff squished in the middle.

So, um, yea, to those of you on your holidays 'Happy Summer' and to those of you still in school 'Get your lazy butt of your computer/phone/Stark-tech-hologram-thingy and get studying'

Love you all!


	4. Chapter 4

Fury was feeling slightly more than exhausted by the time half seven rolled around and parents began arriving to collect their devil spawn, ahem, I mean children. Despite the fact that, including his own four, there were just twenty children running around his garden (which was all of the two youngest classes in the local school), he couldn't help but think fondly about when he could just talk very softly in that scary voice everyone used to fear, and they would just listen to him. (And he didn't at all feel guilty for inviting Natasha's class so that she would make more friends, Ex-Government Directors did _not _feel guilty, ever.)

But now he was regretting it. He had seen Olympic athletes with less stamina than some on the children. Peter, a boy from Natasha's class was particularly goodat climbing into and around tight spaces, a skill which he and Clint were using to climb to the very top of the large tree-house. Nick would have said something, but since Peter's parents were SHIELD scientists, Peter had spent many afternoons higher up in the tree with Clint, so neither of them was in danger.

Thankfully most of the kids had been content with playing 'Superheroes' and running around the garden with handtowels pegged to their clothes and inventing creative hero names, except for Phil and a small boy named Steve, who both wanted to be Captain America. That problem had been solved easily enough when it was decided that everyone had to make up new superheroes to be. (Steve was Captain-USA and Phil was General America, but that is completely beside the point)

The bouncy castle had been a big success, especially with Clint and Natasha who had never seen one before, well Clint had seen one but had never been allowed to go on one, which shocked Nick (and Phil, who had been more than happy to tell Clint the rules of all the bouncy castle games he knew, all two of them).

One of the games involved running from side to side into the walls until you fell over, and although there was no point to it that Nick could see, the children were very enthusiastic about it, especially a girl called Kitty in Clint and Phil's class, who was declared champion for running into a wall twenty times, before Nick made her stop before she got a concussion.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening, and when it was over, since it was Friday, Nick put on a movie for Phil, Clint and Tasha while he got Maria ready and into bed. He came back down to watch with everyone and, although he misses the start, he had seen Monsters Inc. so many times he could almost quote the movie word for word, and let Tasha snuggle sleepily into his side while Clint and Phil were on the edge of their seats as the purple-snake-monster ("Randall," Phil had replied with a sigh when Nick had asked) was searching under the desks for the big-fuzzy-monster, ("Sully," a captivated Phil informed him.)

* * *

Soon enough the film was over and Phil, the eldest, was the only one still awake. Nick carried Tasha and Clint up to their rooms, and since they were already in their pyjamas with their teeth brushed, he just tucked them into their beds, said goodnight to Phil, and went to bed himself.

Nick made himself a mental promise that he would never have a party like that again, one that he knew he would break in a month or so when it was Maria's birthday, but he still promised anyway.

* * *

The day after the party was almost as exciting as the actual party because Nick had taken all the presents and hid them in his room, so that Clint wouldn't be completely overwhelmed on his birthday. So it was time to open them all.

"Don't forget who gave you what so you can say thank you on Monday," Nick instructed, but Clint was too busy eyeing the small mountain of brightly wrapped presents with wonder.

"And, you're sure they're _all _for me?" Clint asked in amazement.

"I'm sure," Nick chuckled, hiding it with a cough when Clint turned a bit red.

Clint started by opening a big box wrapped in shiny silver paper that was from Nick and his siblings. Inside he found a child-sized bow with half a dozen rubber-tipped arrows.

"You said your brother showed you how to use one, and you were talking about wanting to get more practice in, so…." Nick said awkwardly when Clint didn't say anything.

"It's perfect," was all he whispered in reply, his eyes gleaming. It was exactly what he wanted.

He went through the rest of the presents faster, stopping a few times to just stare at the pile around his feet and smile a bit, then resumed carefully opening each present.

"You can tear the paper, you know," Phil informed him, "That's the best part." He look a present to demonstrate and viciously tore away the paper until all that remained was a yellow and orange nerf gun, most likely from one of the male party guests, and presented Clint with an unopened present.

"Your turn."

The present opening went much faster after that, and Clint tore through the paper like a natural until there were no unopened presents left.

Nick gathered up the discarded paper and let the kids play with their toys. Clint wasn't exactly good at sharing, but Nick knew that the boy was smart, in a logical way, and when you have that many new toys you can't possibly play with them all at once, so it shouldn't be a problem.

He made dinner (re-heated pizza and chips from the day before) and by the time he called the children to the kitchen they had dressed up in costumes and had given themselves new names.

"We're all spies," Clint explained through a mouthful of chips.

Nick just leaned back and hoped they never found out that he really was a spy.

* * *

Yay, another chapter. Hope you're all still enjoying this, and a prize to anyone who can list all the cameos from other heroes (There's no real prize, but It'd be cool to see if anyone can actually do it)

I have a bit of an idea to give this story an actual plot but I need to know, do you want super super fluffy, or angsty and dark, like Fury's backstory?

Let me know in the comments and have a nice day (night, afternoon etc. etc.)


End file.
